Part 12

In Wren’s favourite design, as shown in the model still preserved in the cathedral, the dome was to be abutted to the west by an aisleless vestibule or nave, itself crowned by a minor dome; while to the north, east, and south, it was intended to give it the support of a surrounding ring of domical chapels, opening into the central area by a series of fairy-like vistas and ever-changing contrasts of light and shadow. But the Anglican clergy rose in revolt at the position assigned to them in the cathedral—a position contrary to any precedent of the Anglican Church; and refused to sit in a ring all round the central area beneath the dome. On the other hand, the Court party, almost openly expecting, and with good reason, the restoration of the old religion, wanted an aisled nave with room for the pageantry of processions and with provision of chapels for the saint-worship soon to be restored. Romanisers and Anglicans alike united to condemn a plan which failed to provide for the ritualistic needs of either. Wren had to start again; and London had to put up with a Renaissance cathedral which in plan is as mediæval as that of Ely, with aisled nave, aisled choir, aisled transepts, and even with a western transept, as again at Ely. St. Paul’s then, is primarily, an aisled (_i.e._ a basilican) church, with, incidentally, a dome thrown in. And therein lies the fault of the design. Internally, the church predominates over the dome. Unless you stand beneath or almost beneath the dome, you can hardly see that a dome is there at all. Narrow nave, narrower aisles, the multiplied obstructive masses of the various piers, hide the dome away from view. Rightly designed, a great central dome ought to be all in all; everything should lead up to it; everything should be suppressed that does not lend it strength or grace. Its thrusts are great, and cannot be resisted by the piers of aisles, unless the piers are positive mountains of masonry; aisles, then, should be omitted. The dome should rest on four arches, and their thrusts should be resisted by the solid walls of the unaisled nave and choir and the two transepts. And these four great limbs of the church should be kept short, to give the dome full value.

Again, just as the central dome dictates the plan of the church, so it should dictate the form of the vaulted roof. There were three types of vault at Wren’s disposal. One was the intersecting vault, a second the domical vault, a third the waggon or tunnel vault. The first is altogether out of harmony with a central dome, though Wren has employed it in some of his City churches. What he adopted was the second: he vaulted the nave with a row of four domes, the choir with a row of three. Thus, it might be thought, with seven domes leading up to a central dome, Wren had secured harmony and success. It is not so. Nothing can be more distressing to the eye than to follow the up and down line of the little domes till it suddenly plunges into the central abyss. The only tolerable form of vault in connection with a central dome is the tunnel vault, as it is employed in St. Peter’s, Rome; or, still better, in S. Annunziata, Genoa. Such a tunnel vault, however, should start direct from the cornice, and not, as at St. Paul’s, from a meaningless attic interposed between cornice and vault.

As it stands, in the internal elevation of the cathedral Wren has given us a hybrid design. It reminds one of Gothic, for there is a travesty of a clerestory; it is Classic, for beneath is a gigantic Order. Wren has hesitated between two opinions. He might have given us a three-storied interior—pier-arcade, triforium and clerestory—of course with Classical detail, as is done with charming effect in the noble cathedral at Pavia; or a one-storied interior, as at St. Peter’s. As his patrons insisted on having aisles, he might well have adopted the former alternative, and have presented us with what might have been very beautiful—a Classical triforium. If he wanted the majesty of the single gigantic Order of St. Peter’s, he should have omitted the attic, run up the Order twenty feet higher, and lighted the nave by lunettes cut through a tunnel vault. As it is, the miserable attic is of no value in itself, and at the same time diminishes the importance of the pier arcade. However, as we have seen, Wren is not responsible at all for the plan, and only partially for the proportions of the interior of St. Paul’s. He has not given us of his best, because the world of his day would not have it. Most of the defects that one laments are absent from his earlier and favourite design: _e.g._, the ugly subsidiary arches under the oblique arches of the octagon of the dome, and the bad lighting of the dome itself.

Externally everything is different. No ritual, Anglican or other, interfered. Wren had free play: all his success and any faults are his own. What it fails to do internally the great dome does externally with colossal success: it dominates everything—not only the church, but London. Every part of the vast building gathers up into the all-compelling unity of the central dome. Inside, St. Paul’s is all church; outside, it is all dome. Into this exterior has grown in concrete embodiment all Wren’s aspirations: his aspirations for grandeur, massiveness, and power; for monumental stability, for unity, for harmony, for symmetry and proportion, for beauty of curve and line. St. Paul’s has none of the airy lightness of Salisbury and Lincoln; it possesses in compensation the rock-hewn solidity and majesty of Durham. In Lincoln and Salisbury, and in Exeter and York, the windows are counted by hundreds; along the flanks of St. Paul’s windows are few and far apart, and they are confined to the aisles; the great screen-wall above rises sheer like a precipice, almost unbroken by an opening. Simple and grand, too, is the handling of the masses. At the re-entering angles of the transepts square masses project to form a stable platform for the mighty dome; towers project to the flanks of the western bays of the nave, giving breadth and dignity to the main façade. Otherwise the design is symmetry itself. Everything is in the “grand manner.” Perhaps the side-elevation is a little monotonous, and the western chapels block off the towers at their spring, but they were forced on Wren against his better judgment: internally the nave gains greatly; externally they are a mistake. One would perhaps have liked also that the screen-wall of the side aisles of the choir and transepts, instead of ending square, should have circled round in one vast majestic sweep, in harmony with the curving dome above, after the fashion of the fine cathedral of Como. The flatness, moreover, of the side-elevations gives but little room for play of light and shade. There are none of the pits of darkness that lurk between the buttresses and transepts of Beverley or Lincoln. Only in the recessed west front and behind the colonnade of the dome the shadows brood. Nature, however, or rather London smoke, has given St. Paul’s a chiaroscuro of its own—not to be washed off, as has been foolishly proposed, by Vandal fire-engines. Where the rain lashes the building, especially its angles and projections, the good Portland stone is white and clean; where sheltered by projecting cornices it is black as Erebus.

Externally, it is a building of two stories. Wren designed it originally for one story, but was unable to get big enough blocks of stone to carry a single gigantic Order, as at St. Peter’s, up to the cornice; for which we may be thankful. The façade also is composed of two Orders of columns, and they are necessarily comparatively small columns. But all appearance of weakness is admirably removed by arranging them in couples; indeed, one would be sorry to have instead of this noble design Wren’s own one-story façade as shown in his model,—still more to have that of Inigo Jones.

The harmony, too, of the noble design is delightful. The two stories of the columns of the façade become two stories of pilasters on the flanks of the nave; at the ends of the transepts they sweep round into lovely semicircular colonnades; colonnades form the central stages of the western steeples; the drum of the dome is encircled by a superb colonnade; the dome itself culminates in a colonnaded lantern. See, too, how the lantern, domical above and colonnaded below, sums up the composition of the dome beneath; and how the western steeples prepare the eye for the transition from the rectilinear colonnades of the great façade to the swelling curve of the dome,—itself reproduced in the north and south circular porches and in the apsidal choir. St. Paul’s is “a house at one with itself.”

It is true that the dead wall from aisle windows to cornice is perhaps the “most unmitigated building sham upon the face of the earth.” It has absolutely nothing to do at all except to hide away some flying-buttresses—the very ugliest eye ever saw—which Sir Christopher might well be reluctant to expose to the jeers of the man in the street. It is true, too, that there is built up in this dead wall enough good stone to construct half a dozen parish churches. It has been urged that it was built to weight the foot of each flying-buttress after the manner of a Gothic pinnacle. But not even a Gothic baby would have provided continuous abutment for intermittent thrusts. The dead wall may perhaps be defended on artistic, but certainly not on constructional grounds.

In the dome, Wren had three conflicting ideals to realise: (1) to make the dome so lofty that it should be visible externally from base to summit; (2) to make it so low internally that it should range with the vaulting of nave, choir, and transepts; (3) to finish it with a stone lantern as lofty and heavy as an ordinary church spire. At St. Peter’s the dome externally squats down so low that from most directions one must walk a mile away to get a complete view of it; the internal dome is so lofty as to be invisible from most parts of the church; the lantern is much smaller and lighter than is required by so mighty a dome; and is in a condition of very unstable equilibrium, badly supported, cracked, and tied together in all directions. All these difficulties Wren triumphantly disposed of; nevertheless, for his triumph he has received little but censure and abuse. He made two domes; and brought the inner dome, which is of brick (see diagram), far lower than the outer one—though not low enough. Secondly, he mounted the outer dome, which is of wood covered with lead, on a lofty colonnaded drum, visible of all men even from the narrow street below. Thirdly, between the two domes (see diagram) he built a cone of brick, and on this cone he poised the lantern—which is as heavy as an ordinary church-spire—in perfect security. If the outer dome were removed—_e.g._, if it were burnt, as it may some day, being of wood—the lantern would still stand perfectly safe on its conical support. In the dome of St. Paul’s Wren’s engineering capacities culminate. But it is more than a piece of engineering. No tower, no spire, no group of towers or spires, impresses itself on the imagination like the dome of St. Paul’s. Lincoln and Salisbury, Lichfield and Durham, retire before the claims of this overwhelming younger pile,

“whose sky-like dome Hath typified by reach of daring art Infinity’s embrace.”

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Norwich.

The ancient kingdom of East Anglia was converted to Christianity by a Burgundian monk, Felix, who became the first bishop of East Anglia—the diocese, as usual, being coextensive with the kingdom—and fixed his see at Dunwich in 630. The see was subdivided by the Archbishop Theodore, the great organiser of the English Church, in 669. It was again reunited, and the cathedral was at Elmham, till the bishop migrated in 1070 to Thetford, and in 1094 to Norwich.

The present cathedral was commenced in 1096 by Herbert de Losinga, who is usually described as a Lorrainer. He is recorded to have finished the whole cathedral before his death in 1119 as far as the altar of the Holy Cross, which would stand in front of the choir-screen. His successor finished the nave and west front, and carried up the central tower (1121-1145). The plan is that of Gloucester and Leominster; the rudiments of it appear in the ancient church at Bethlehem and in St. Sepulchre at Jerusalem. There was an enormously long aisled nave of fourteen bays, aisleless transepts of three bays, an aisled presbytery of five bays, a semicircular apse, a processional aisle or ambulatory encircling the apse, and three segmental chapels radiating from the ambulatory; also eastern apses to the transepts. All this remains, except the easternmost apsidal chapel, which was replaced in the thirteenth century by an oblong Lady chapel, itself pulled down in the sixteenth century; and the apse of the south transept, which was replaced by an oblong chapel in the thirteenth century.

The history of Norwich cathedral, therefore, differs _toto cœlo_ from that of every other English cathedral, except that of Gloucester. With the exception that both Gloucester and Norwich ultimately increased the dimensions of their eastern Lady chapels, no eastward extensions of any moment took place. This was not because the Norfolk people were more conservative than other people, or, in a remote corner of England, were behind the times; but because the plan of the Norwich cathedral was convenient for mediæval ritual, and the plan of the other cathedrals was not. Other cathedrals had to build a processional aisle at the back of the High Altar; at Norwich it was there already. Other cathedrals had to throw out eastern transepts to provide chapels for the great saints of the Church, St. James, St. John, St. Peter and the rest; Norwich cathedral from the first had five apsidal chapels. Other cathedrals had a local saint of the first water, and had to build a special saint’s chapel or feretory for his shrine: Canterbury for St. Thomas, Chester for St. Werburgh, Durham for St. Cuthbert, Ely for St. Audrey, Hereford for St. Ethelbert, Lichfield for St. Chad, Lincoln for St. Hugh, Oxford for St. Frideswide, Rochester for St. William, St. Albans for St. Alban, Winchester for St. Swithin, Worcester for St. Wolfstan. Norwich had no local saint of any great repute, except a poor little boy who was alleged to have been crucified by the Jews. Nor, again, did sacerdotalism much affect the growth of Norwich cathedral. The nave was so vast that, even when the monks had appropriated five bays of it for their ritual choir, as they did at first, there still remained nine bays for processions, and for the laity to worship at the nave-altar of the Holy Cross. There was no need to crowd the stalls into the eastern limb of the church as the Canterbury monks had to do because of the shortness of their Norman nave. It is true that, later on, the Norwich monks moved eastward a little, placing their sixty stalls under the tower and in the two easternmost bays of the nave, where they are at present; but this was probably done merely to get better light, partly from the lantern-tower above, partly from the enlarged windows of the transepts. The original position of the choir is marked by the cylindrical piers, the fifth from the tower; by a hole in the vault, inside a boss, from which hung down a light or a censer; and by the corbelling of the eastern vaulting-shafts to leave room for the stalls.

With these exceptions, the history of the cathedral mainly reduces itself to three sets of building operations: first, repairs necessitated by fire or storm; secondly, attempts to improve the lighting of the building; and, thirdly, to make it fireproof.

Taking these works in the above order, we first have to note the mischief done by fire and storm. In 1297 the tower seems to have had a wooden spire. This was blown down in 1361; and, falling eastward, damaged the clerestory of the Norman presbytery. Both the spire and clerestory had to be rebuilt; and in rebuilding the clerestory the monks took the opportunity to remedy what was the gravest defect in all the Norman cathedrals—viz., their extreme darkness. Now, it happened that, only some ten years before, the magnificent clerestory of Gloucester presbytery had been built; and the report of the brilliant illumination and gorgeous glass of this grand work was bruited, no doubt, all over England by pilgrims returning from the shrine of the murdered Edward II. at Gloucester. Therefore, just as at Gloucester, they determined to raise the new presbytery higher than the nave—they raised it ten feet—and to make the clerestory practically a continuous sheet of glass. In one thing, fortunately, they did not copy Gloucester, as Edington did in Winchester nave—which is of the same date as the Norwich work—they did not think it necessary to discard altogether the beautiful flowing tracery of the Curvilinear period; and so here, as in many Norfolk churches, we find inserted, side by side, at the same time, Curvilinear and Perpendicular windows. Another charming feature of Curvilinear work was the ogee niche, such as those of the arcade of Ely Lady chapel. These niches, too, were utilised at Norwich cleverly and beautifully, being used instead of corbels to support the ribs of the roof. This fourteenth-century roof seems to have been one of wood.

But, earlier than this, a determined attempt had been made to get rid of the darkness of the nave by inserting (1315-1360) a range of windows with flowing tracery all along the north aisle of the nave. In the Perpendicular period (1360-1485) the monks took the same course as at Ely: they raised the triforium walls, closed the external windows of the triforium, flattened the roof of the triforium, and thus managed to get in a range of tall windows, each of four lights, in the hope that the light from them might find its way into the nave across the triforium; and that the more easily as the openings of the inner arcade of the triforium were not obstructed by central shafts. The result is extraordinary, as seen from the garth. The south side of the cathedral, instead of the usual three or four stories, seems six stories high. First there are the openings of the cloister; then the upper story of the cloister; then the blind arcade of the triforium; then the Norman triforium windows; then the Perpendicular ditto; then the Norman clerestory.

Even this was insufficient. The eastern bays of the nave, where the stalls were placed, and where, most of all, light was needed, were the darkest of all, being obstructed by the stalls and by the cloister roof. So in the exterior of the two easternmost bays of the nave the Perpendicular triforium windows and the Norman clerestory windows were thrown into one, to give as much light as possible to the stalls below. For the same reason large Perpendicular windows were inserted in the transepts. Several of these, however, have recently been replaced by Norman windows: “genuine Perpendicular by sham Norman.” In the middle of the south aisle of the nave Bishop Nix (1501-1536) built himself a gorgeous chantry, to light which he inserted two large windows, high up so as to clear the cloister roof. Large square-headed windows were inserted in the triforium of the presbytery also; and an enormous Perpendicular window was inserted in the west front, still further to light the nave. These measures were fairly successful in nave and transept; but, fortunately for us, less successful than in the presbytery.

Now we come to the measures taken to make the building fireproof. These took the form of costly stone vaults, and they seem to have been undertaken by the monks most reluctantly. All the high vaults are the direct outcome of some great fire, and but for the fire they would not have been undertaken. There were conflagrations in 1170 and 1271, and in the fearful riots of 1272 the cathedral was set on fire by the citizens. Still, when the presbytery was repaired in 1362, it seems to have been roofed again in wood. In 1463 the wooden spire was struck by lightning, and set fire to the roofs both of nave and presbytery. At last the monks had to bestir themselves. To secure the spire against fire they rebuilt it in stone instead of wood; and, to make the nave and presbytery fireproof, they made up their minds to vault both in stone. Between 1463 and 1472 Bishop Lyhart put up over the nave the present magnificent lierne vault, and at his death bequeathed two thousand marks to his successor to continue the work. Bishop Goldwell vaulted the presbytery between 1472 and 1499. It seems to have been very difficult to get the funds for this costly work. Bishop Goldwell, however, was a personal friend of the Pope, who had consecrated him with his own hands; and he had not much difficulty in persuading the Pope to grant a perpetual indulgence in the terms that “all who came to the cathedral on Trinity Sunday and Lady Day, and made an offering towards the fabric, should be entitled to an indulgence of twelve years and forty days.” The transepts had still wooden roofs. It required another fire—in 1509—in which these roofs were consumed, to compel the monks to complete the vaulting of the cathedral. This was done in the time of Bishop Nix. At the end of four hundred years Norwich cathedral was at length fireproof.

And did they do nothing merely for prettiness’ sake? Well, here, as at Gloucester, they set to work to do what was quite unnecessary—to harmonise the Norman ground-story of the presbytery with the clerestory of 1631. By one of those marvellous pieces of engineering, of which the mediæval architects were so fond—we saw a conspicuous example at Carlisle—while retaining the Norman triforium and the Perpendicular clerestory above, they managed to remodel the Norman piers on either side of the presbytery, and to take out the semicircular arches bodily and replace them by the fashionable arch of the period—a depressed four-centered arch. This was done by Bishop Goldwell—no doubt before he put up the vault above (_c._ 1475).

The only other great work was the rebuilding of the cloisters, also forced on the monks by a great fire—that of 1272. This work was executed exceedingly slowly, the window tracery ranging from Geometrical, through Curvilinear, to Perpendicular work.

One word more about the superb interior. It is hardly too much to say that the interior of this cathedral—but second-rate in point of dimensions—is unequalled in all England. One reason is that it is vaulted throughout. Ely, Peterborough St. Albans, Rochester, Romsey, Waltham, Southwell—with their paltry wooden ceilings—are not to be compared for a moment with Norwich. Gloucester and Chichester naves are vaulted, but the vaults are too slight and flimsy for the stern and massive work below. Durham vault is strong and satisfactory. But the lierne vault of Norwich is a far more glorious crown and finish than the rude work of Durham. It might be thought that the richness and magnificence of the lierne vault of Norwich would be out of harmony with the simplicity and heaviness of Norman piers and triforium and clerestory. It is not so. A tower, like that of Magdalen College, Oxford, may be ever so plain below, and yet terminate fitly with a glorious coronal of battlements, parapet and pinnacles. So it is with this interior.